


Catching Up

by Fleeples



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Dizzie, F/M, Gap-Fill, Gen, Jing - Freeform, Pemberley arc, Post-Pemberley, Watching The Videos, videos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:58:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fleeples/pseuds/Fleeples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane realizes just how out of touch with Lizzie's life she's been. She and Bing watch her videos together to catch up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Up

Jane Bennet was not accustomed to frowning.  
Seldom was her face not lit by a smile, or at least an expression of pleasant politeness. Indeed, as Charlotte had once pointed out for the Internet, she could come face to face with her mortal enemy and cheerfully greet them. But she was frowning now. Specifically, at her phone, which sat on the table, being stared at by Jane as though it was the culprit of a crime.  
(A small crime. Something along the lines of ‘strawberry theft’. Jane’s ‘frown’ was still relatively sweet.)  
“Hey,” said a voice, breaking her out of her reverie. “Are you okay, Jane?”  
“Huh? Oh, gosh, I’m sorry, did you say something?”  
“I was just asking if you wanted syrup with the pancakes.” He grinned. “I’m almost getting good at this cooking thing under your tutelage.”  
Jane smiled half-heartedly. “You are. And, uh, yes, syrup would be lovely. Thank you so much.” But there was still something in her tone that was off, so Bing turned the gas off and sat down next to her. “What’s wrong? You look like that phone just did something awful.”   
“What? Oh, sorry. It’s nothing. I just spoke to Lizzie before I came in is all.”  
“Oh, that must’ve been nice. How is she?” Bing, satisfied with the knowledge that Jane was just distracted, resumed his pancake related conquest, turning the gas back on and dolloping a large spoonfull of batter in the pan.   
“See,” she said, “That’s just the thing.”  
“Hmm?” Bing prodded at the pancakes awkwardly. He’d not heated up the oil enough, and the result was a mush. A mush that still looked pretty delicious, but was not in the slightest artful.  
“She seemed... off. She was trying to seem like she was fine, but I know my sister, and something was wrong. She wouldn’t give any clue as to what, though.” She sighed. “I just wish I could help. I wish I knew what it was.” She pushed the phone away and crossed her arms. “Uh. Sorry.”  
“Don’t worry,” said Bing, serving a pancake-like mush on to a plate. “I like that you feel you can tell me these things. And I can understand you worrying about your sister. Though I think she’ll be fine.”  
“What makes you so sure?” Jane said, completely oblivious to the failed pancake dilemma, which Bing was now quietly tipping away into the compost bin to save him some face, and starting anew.  
“Just... I mean, I know I don’t know everything about Lizzie, but she’s always seemed like someone who can take care of herself.”  
Jane sighed. “Yeah, but so does Lydia. Everyone needs someone sometimes.”  
Bing nodded, biting his lip as he produced the beginnings of a less catastrophic pancake. “Yeah. You’re right.” Then a pause. Time for serving on to a plate. (Successfully, this time.) “I should call Caroline later.”  
“Mm,” said Jane, heading over to the kettle to put on another batch of tea. “Pancakes look great, by the way, Bing.”   
Bing smiled to himself. “Thanks. They’ll be ready in a sec.”  
Jane sighed. Honest-to-god-sighed. Frowning and sighing in a five minute time period. Definitely not usual Jane behaviour.  
“You know,” said Jane. “I really need to catch up on Lizzie’s videos. Sometimes I feel like the internet knows more about my sisters than I do.” She sighed. “In fact, that’s going to be my project today. I keep putting it off.” She paused as she fished the teabag out of the mug. “God, maybe Lizzie’s entire viewership knows what’s wrong and I don’t. What kind of a sister does that make me?”  
“A human one,” says Bing, offering her a plate of pancakes and kissing her forehead (A little awkwardly, given the plates in their hands.) “Hey, Jane. Do you want to watch them together?”  
A pause. A smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I would. If you’re OK with that.”  
As they settled down in front of Jane’s laptop with pancakes on tea, Bing’s arm curled around Jane in a position that she didn’t have the heart to tell him was a little awkward, Bing piqued up: “Besides, you say Lizzie’s entire viewership like that’s loads of people or something.”  
Jane laughed as she loaded up Lizzie’s channel. “Oh, Bing,” she said, shaking her head. “You watched some of them. You know how popular they are.”  
It was his turn to frown then. “I only watched a few. Wait, does she have, like, a tonne of viewers?”  
“Bing,” she said, and pointed to the subscriber number.  
There was a long, long, stunned silence.  
“Wow,” said Bing. “That’s... quite a few people.”  
“Yeah. It sure is.”

 

“Where are you going to start?”  
“Pemberley, I think. That’s... really when I lost touch on how things were going.”  
So Jane scrolls down through what feels like far too many videos and clicks: “Tour Leader.”  
They sit in silence and watch it, a smile spreading across both their faces.  
“Gigi seems sweet,” says Jane.  
“She is. You’d really like her. Everybody does.”  
“Mmm. Doubt I’ll ever get to meet her, though.”  
“You never know.”  
The next video is a little ominously named, but Jane doesn’t pick up on it. Bing knows a little of what might be contained there in a vague conversation he had with Darcy, but not the full detail.   
They get halfway through before Jane raises her eyebrows.  
“She’s a sweetheart. Also... a little crazy,” says Bing.  
Lizzie echoes the sentiment a few minutes later.  
Jane’s face is in perpetual raised-eyebrow mode. “That was... interesting.”  
“Yeah.” Bing hovers the mouse over the next video warily. “Oh. This one... this one has me in.”  
“Oh.”  
“I...”  
“Would you rather we didn’t watch it?”  
“No, I mean... I’m trying to be better about... If we’re going to make this relationship work, we have to be honest with each other, right? I’m... I’m not proud of what you’re about to see, but... if you want to watch it, that’s OK.”   
Jane pauses, looking at the thumbnail. “Do you think it would be better for us if I did?”  
“Jane,” he says. “It’s about what’s best for you.”  
There is a long pause. She presses play. Jane Bennet does not dwell on the past, but sometimes secrets are walls you can never move through.  
She pauses again at the end of Lizzie’s warning label, looking concerned. “I... do you think she would mind me watching these?”  
Bing shakes his head. “I don’t think so. She was trying to protect you. And you don’t need it anymore.” He smiles and strokes her hair. “Things are different now, right?”  
Deep breath.  
Press play.  
At the end, she said: “That’s it?”  
“What’s it?”  
“That’s what you were so worried about me seeing?”  
“I wasn’t-”  
“You’re pretty tense for someone who wasn’t worried.”  
“I’m sorry. I just... I’m not proud of that whole period of my life. I... I’m proud of this. Now. What I’m doing in New York, and what I have with you, and hope will last. And I guess I was worried... that you’d see that guy and you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with him.”  
Jane shakes her head. “Bing, that’s... that’s ridiculous. I know who you are. The past is the past. I’m glad to know a little more about what happened, but it hasn’t... altered my opinion of you.”  
They stay wrapped in each other’s arms for a little while before they watch the next video.


End file.
